


How (Not) to Get on Karen Page's Shit List

by Ellerigby13



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Frank Annoys the Living Shit Out of Karen Page, debate class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: The ever-growing list of people whose lights Karen Page intends to knock out now includes-Frank Castle, for constantly arguing with her during her oral communications class for the hell of it-Professor Elker, for constantly pitting Frank against her in debates-Trish Walker, for insisting that Karen and Frank belong together, for throwing this stupid party, and for accidentally-on-purpose locking the two of them in this room together-Oh, and the Arctic Monkeys, for putting out such an annoying song that both Karen and Frank hate and now maybe want to make out to in this room that they've been unceremoniously locked in.





	How (Not) to Get on Karen Page's Shit List

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/gifts).



> I don't own any of the characters (except perhaps Professor Elker and Candace Clayton, the first of whom is based loosely on one of my favorite college professors) or any of the music. Disney and Marvel own all rights to MCU characters, while the Arctic Monkeys and their production company own "Do I Wanna Know?"  
> Hope y'all enjoy :)

“ _ Have you got color in your cheeks?  D’you ever get that fear--” _

“Ugh, I’m sorry, but can you turn that off?”  Karen’s rolling her eyes, threading her hair between her fingers and tapping impatiently on the cover of her composition notebook.  Trish chuckles, half-amused and half-annoyed, but relents, turning the dial so that they can sit in silence.

“I like that song; what’s your damage, Miss-Let’s-Wake-Up-Early-to-Study-for-Midterms?”

“Are you kidding?” Jessica chimes in from the back seat; under the sunglasses and hoodie, Karen could’ve sworn that she heard Jess snoring in the back when she’d originally gotten in, but the hangover must have worn off when she smelled the coffees in the front seat.  “That song plays every five fuckin’ minutes.  The hipsters have officially taken over.”  She sniffs, pushing the shades up her nose.  “That a medium roast up there?”

Karen laughs, reaching back to pass the cup to Jess, who pops off the lid and drinks it back, no cream, no sugar, and piping hot.

“No, I agree completely.  It’s on all the time.  When I was living in the dorms last semester, it was on  _ everyone’s _ sex playlist.  I can only take so much bass when I hear Candace Clayton get railed repeatedly by the lacrosse team.”

Jessica snorts, causing the hot liquid to come out of her nose.

“Aw,  _ fuck! _  Trish, pull over a second.”

Trish and Karen try their best not to laugh as Jessica gathers all the napkins she can, swearing like a sailor, to mop up the coffee on her hoodie and on the seat.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, assholes.  I’ll get you back soon enough, don’t you worry.”

“And our little dog, too?”  The true mom of the group, and especially of Jessica, Trish fumbles through her glove compartment for an ever-miraculous pack of baby wipes.  “Here, Jess.  Don’t worry about the car, I’ll take care of it later.  Hey, you guys are both coming to the party tomorrow night, right?  My little jamboree to celebrate the kickass job we’re going to do on this midterm.”

“You having it at your mom’s penthouse?” Jess asks, tipping the sunglasses back onto her face, wrinkling her nose with disdain.  When Trish was a kid, she did a bunch of commercials and then ended up on a pretty--scratch that, a  _ scary _ successful--TV show that ran for about five years.  The money from Trish’s fame that Dorothy Walker didn’t spend on booze and pills went into making sure that she and her daughter looked like the most wholesome family in showbiz.  Which, later on, ended up involving adopting Jessica after her family got killed in a car crash.  Shockingly, Dot’s lifestyle primping-slash-pimping her daughter to the televised masses contrasted starkly with Jessica’s natural bluntness, Jessica who preferred her coffee black and got suspended for punching out the kid who teased her about the car crash.

Long story short, Jess didn’t take too kindly to the way Dorothy Walker maintained her “family.”

“Well, Dot’s in Barbados for the week and it would be a damn shame to let all her expensive decanters go to waste.”  Trish grins at Jessica through the rearview mirror, taking off toward campus again.

“As long as Arctic Monkeys aren’t on the party playlist, I’m in.”  Karen smiles faintly, opening up her notebook to skim over last night’s Oral Communication notes.  “Who else is gonna be there?”  She notices that Trish hesitates, humming softly and shrugging, before adjusting her beanie two or three times.

“Uh, nobody super important.  You know, Ward and Joy from business, Claire from pre-med, her friends Danny and Colleen from international relations.  Your boy Luke,” she giggles, reaching back to nudge Jess’s knee.  “And...maybe Foggy and Marci and Matt.”  Karen groans, shoving her palms into her eyes.  “But Foggy and Marci are gonna be cool!  They’ll preoccupy him or they’ll preoccupy you, and I specifically asked him not to bring Elektra.”

Just the name pulls at her chest, and Karen understands that she shouldn’t be upset--that she shouldn’t hold it against him, since they weren’t really dating.  She shouldn’t have placed so much importance in those two measly dates, or the subdued little smile he was wearing just before he kissed her on the step of her apartment.  She shouldn’t hold it against him that, when she tried to return one of the Killers CDs he’d let her borrow, that she’d walked in on him with a spindly, sexy little brunette girl in his arms and his lips otherwise occupied.

It’s none of her business, so she pretends not to care so much, flipping more and more rapidly through her notes.

“It’s not that big of a deal.  If he brings her, he brings her.  I’m still going to enjoy my time with you guys and Foggy and Marci, and get drunk off my ass to forget that he’s even there.”  Trish is pulling into the student lot between their block of classrooms and the good cafeteria with the fresh muffins, sighing her most unimpressed sigh.

“Kare, we’ll keep him away from you.  On my honor.”  Trish raises her hand like a Boy Scout, her mischievous grin betraying her.  Karen reaches over to gently whack her arm before lugging her bookbag out of the car.

“Tell me where this honor is,  _ please _ .”

The air is crisp and cool beating against their faces while they make their way to the humanities building.  Their Oral Comm classroom is empty when they get there, a few papers left behind on the instructor desk from the last class.  Jess shifts into the chair closest to the wall, leaning her head against the window and frowning down at the haphazard notes in front of her.  Karen sees she’s close to checking out again, so she focuses her attention on bouncing ideas back and forth with Trish.

“How well do you feel like you can commit to the whole body language thing?  Not putting your hands in your pockets and whatnot?”  Trish chews the end of her pen, and circles the side she wants to take on the upcoming debate topic.

“God, Elker’s such a stickler for the body language,” she sighs, casting a sideways glance at the notes their professor had given her from the last debate.  “He marked me down for leaning on the desk and tapping it during the last debate.  How do I try to act natural without doing distracting shit?  It’s either completely laid-back or stiff as a fuckin’ board for me.”

Karen shuffles through her notebook, lining up and bulleting the main points she needs to stick to for the debate today.  As part of their midterm, they’ve been assigned to argue against what the world is beginning to consider “dying media” (aka, the fields that she and Trish both work and specialize in, aka, newsprint and the radio) on the grounds that, with the overwhelming accessibility to the internet and the consideration that access to the internet is a right, news media needs to evolve with technology.

Which, technically, she agrees with.  That with advancements in tech, news media needs to step up its game in some ways.  In fact, she’s spearheading that process with her job, converting old news articles to HTML at  _ The Daily Bulletin _ .  So really, for the sake of the challenge, she should be arguing on the other team, as best to prove her debate skills.

And she’d totally ace that, if it weren’t for  _ him _ .

“Miss Walker.  Miss Jones.  Miss  _ Page _ .”  

Trish combines an eye roll with a grin, directing her gaze at Karen as  _ he _ walks through the door, his clunky and completely out of place boots echoing on the tile as he brushes past them, taking his usual spot at the back of the classroom.

“Morning, Frank,” Trish calls back, turning the sugar in her voice up to eleven.

Frank Castle is tall and rugged.  He wears his hair shaven on the sides and in a thick black tuft on top, as per the standards of the Marine unit he left six months ago.  He wears the same clothes every day, and thus might be a closet sociopath: a heavy black hoodie, fraying gray cargo pants, and the  _ loudest goddamn boots Karen Page has ever had the misfortune to hear _ .  Every time he joins in a debate, he jumps in immediately after she’s spoken and only ever jumps in to argue with her--sorry, Professor Elker, to  _ counter  _ her points.  And when he makes a particularly good point and she’s left fuming because the only thing she could think to say would be a very profane, very not-class-appropriate string of insults and curse words, he glues on this smug little smirk and refuses to make eye contact with her for the rest of the lesson.

And Trish is convinced that he wants Karen to have his babies.

Karen is convinced she will eventually knock his lights out.

“Frank, you coming to my party tomorrow night?”

Scratch that.  She might knock Trish’s lights out on the spot.

Frank chuckles, sinking into the hard plastic chair and kicking those obnoxious goddamn boots up onto the chair beside him.

“Your old lady just leaves out the good booze, Walker?”  Trish grins, tells him where the most expensive decanters are.  They both look a little too excited, Trish stealing glances at Karen in between their babble.  Karen feels like her eyes will fall out of her head if she rolls them anymore today, so she eventually chooses to ignore them and review her midterm notes.  Jessica has moved on to snoring in the corner, and only stirs when Professor Elker has finished setting up his briefcase and morning coffee, and the rest of the class has trickled in.

“Miss Jones, I presume you’re catching up on your rest after a long night of studying hard for all your midterms?” he chuckles, pretending not to notice her wiping a line of drool off her chin with the sleeve of her jacket.

“You could call it that.”

Meanwhile, Trish has elbowed Karen with a look of utter glee in her eyes, softly giggling about this latest invitation, and Castle is bouncing a pen on the desk, sharing a half a smirk with her.

And when Professor Elker, with his good-natured smile and his fatherly charm asks her and Mr. Castle to make their opening statements, she feels unfortunately certain that he’s third on her list to get his lights knocked out.

_______________________________________________

_ This is what freedom feels like _ , Karen thinks, as another shot of whiskey makes its way down her throat.  Jessica looks almost impressed, now nursing her sixth or seventh Manhattan, and Trish is slamming down her own shot glass next to Karen’s.  The night is theirs at Dorothy Walker’s penthouse, with the strobe lights flashing across the walls and the music pounding through the floors.  Karen hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Matt, Elektra, or Frank and she’s trying to forget who they are, to be perfectly honest, in the spaces between the thumping bass.

“We look fucking  _ hot _ !” Trish hisses, leaning across Karen sloppily, a little too drunk a little too early.

“Mmm, business major over there keeps checking you out.”  Karen nods toward the entirely too rich-looking dark-haired fellow across the room, with his three thousand dollar suit and his icy cocktail, the fellow with his hands in his pockets and his steely eyes fixed on Trish, a small smile catching his lips when he sees her look at him.

“Oh shit.  Oh  _ shit _ .”  She pauses, turning back to the girls and pouring herself another shot of Jack.  “I’m talking to him.  If I don’t have his number in ten minutes, kick my ass, please.”

Under the giddy smile pasted on her lips by the booze and the music, Karen wonders if that would be a good story to tell the kids when they get older, that Mom and Dad met at a wild college party, rip-roaring drunk, hooked up in the kids’ evil grandmother’s penthouse, and then lived happily ever after.  She wonders if love ever really works out that way, and her Jack-soaked brain begins to take that fated turn towards cynicism.

“Does that ever work out for anybody?” she asks aloud, mostly to herself.

“Does anything else?”  Jessica surveys the party, and Karen follows her gaze toward Luke Cage with his beefy arms wrapped around Claire Temple, their lithe bodies swaying to some deep-voiced crooner.  Jess sips from her glass again, her fingers running across the the little ridges at the base.  “Maybe we get what we deserve.  Maybe the bridges we burn burn us back.”

_ What did you do, though _ ? Karen wants to beg, but she’s not asking Jess anymore.   _ What did  _ I  _ do to get burned like that? _

Like clockwork, there they are.  Elektra in a clingy red dress that blows every other girl at this party out of the water, slinking up next to Matt, who couldn’t look a bit happier beside her.  Marci, looking absolutely powerful and put-together, trying to ease Foggy up; Foggy, in his best and worst suit, wringing his hands together as he searches the room anxiously for his beloved hostesses.

He finally comes over with such a sheepish and apologetic look on his face that Karen can’t help but feel just a sliver of the ugliness in her stomach dissolve.

“I’m sorry.”  He hugs her so tight she feels like her ribs might burst, before Marci steps in for a hug of her own, thankfully a much gentler one.

“He insisted that Trish wouldn’t mind,” she explains, picking a speck of lint off Karen’s dress after releasing her.

“Trish has got other things on her plate.”  She nods at the suddenly indistinct shapes of Trish dancing with the fancypants in the corner, her slender arms strung around his neck and her hips pressed to his through her thin black dress.  Foggy raises an incredulous eyebrow.  

“Meachum?  Ward Meachum?  I thought he was only interested in putting his dick in his dad’s investments.”  Marci lets out an appalled giggle, slaps Foggy in the arm.

“Franklin Nelson, don’t be so profane.”  She fixes some of her hair back into its correct bobby pin, letting her hips sway with the newest song.  “You girls look like you need another shot.  What are we drinking?”  Marci wrinkles her nose when Karen and Jess show her their bottle of Jack, and helps herself to one of Trish’s mom’s expensive decanters.  They pass the decanter around, each taking a large swig before sending it along.

“To a drunker tonight and a brighter tomorrow,” Foggy toasts, grinning lopsidedly.  When Karen brings the decanter to her lips, she can feel Jess’s and Foggy’s hands on each of her shoulders, squeezing gently.

“To...forgetting the past to build the future,” she mutters against the glass, closing her eyes to feel the stiff liquor slide down her throat.  Maybe after a few more swigs, she can forget Matt’s here, or his lips on that slim, sexy girl at his side.  After a few more swigs, she can maybe forget the feeling of her stomach dropping into her toes, that first time in Matt’s apartment and again here.  Before Karen can register that the Jack is starting to taste sour, the current song slows to a stop and she hears the door opening again.

“Are you...are you  _ fucking  _ kidding me?” she mumbles, eyes still closed, but she’d recognize the thick clunking of those boots anywhere.  Finally she opens her eyes, shoves the decanter into Jessica’s hands, and excuses herself to find a quieter space.

The new song plays muffled through the door, some mediocre dance tune that bounces off the walls in obnoxiously loud bass, while Karen paces back and forth across the floor of the guest bedroom, pushing her hands back through her hair and trying to slow her breathing down.   _ One, two, three, four _ …  She tries to inhale with each odd beat, inhale with each even one.  It’s not Frank Castle’s fault that she’s headspun.  Not Frank’s fault she’s been downing shots like they’re water and her throat’s on fire.  Not Frank’s fault her not-ex and his new girl showed up uninvited.

“Karen?”

Trish is poking her head into a crack through the door, having finally separated her body from that rich fuck Ward Meachum’s.  When she realizes nobody else is in the room but stacks of coats and purses, she steps in, closing the door behind her.

“I’m good,” she says, finally sitting on the bed, grasping the covers between her fingers to remind herself that solidity exists.  “I’m good.”

“You’ve got that look.  I’ll go kick everybody out.”

“No--” she says, too quickly, and squeezes the blanket just a little tighter.  “No, it’s okay.  I just need a minute.  I’ll be out in a little bit.”  Trish comes over and pulls the blanket out of Karen’s hand, replacing it with her own.

“Hey.  You’re okay.  Okay?”

“Yeah.  I’m good.”  She nods, unsure if she’s trying to convince Trish or herself.  “I’ll be out in...give me five minutes?”  Trish smiles as reassuringly as she can, and wraps her arms around Karen, pulling her in.

“Love you, kid.”

“You have Meachum’s phone number yet?  I remember being specifically told that if you didn’t have his number in the next ten minutes, you were due for an ass-kicking.”  Trish giggles, then brandishes her phone, lit up with a selfie of herself and the high-powered suit, making duck faces, and underneath a set of ten digits undeniably belonging to Ward.  “Well, fuck me sideways with a cactus.  New terms and conditions: if you don’t get back out there and dance with him to the end of the night,  _ then _ I will kick your ass.  And I’ll have Jess and Foggy help me.”

“Deal,” she laughs, planting a smooch on Karen’s cheek.  She gets up, dancing with the music to the door, then turns back.  “Oh, by the way, this door automatically locks from the outside, so I’m gonna leave it cracked, yeah?”

“Dot locks it from the outside?”

“This was Jess’s and my room when we were growing up.  Little did Dot know that locking us up together only let us conspire against her in private.”

They share a final smile before Trish makes her way out, and Karen goes into that bedroom’s bathroom to splash some water on her face.

_ You’re good _ .   _ Your friends love you, and you’re safe.  Breathe. _

She’s finally got a steady lock on her own eyes in the mirror when the not-so-distant sound of a shutting door snaps her out of her own head.  She dries her face with one of the crisp white hand towels and ducks out of the bathroom, only to knock smack into the broad chest of a six-foot-tall someone in a tight black t-shirt.

_ For fuck’s sake. _

“Frank, did you close the door?”  Panic sets in, and her hands start to shake when she realizes that the door is, in fact, shut, and they are, in fact, locked in this room together.

“I did.”  In his hand, the three-quarters full decanter that had previously rested atop the entertainment cabinet in Trish and Jess’s old room.  In his eyes, a look of smooth smugness, as if he’s done it  _ on purpose _ , and  _ cornered her here like an animal _ .

“You--you--the door locks from the  _ out _ side, Frank!”  That smugness dissolves, and his eyes begin to adopt that same panic that’s now zipping up and down Karen’s spine.

“Fuck.  Fuck.  They’ll hear us if we pound on the door, right?”  Before she has the chance to answer, he starts banging on it, pounding his fists fruitlessly on the wood.  “Hey!  HEY!”  His voice is low and all  _ growly _ when he shouts, stirring up something in Karen’s stomach that definitely should not be stirring up now when they are locked in a room together.

_ Oh dear God, Boozy Horny Karen is taking over for Boozy Weepy Karen. _

Frank keeps shouting, but some newer, dancier song has the speakers bumping, and the tell-tale rhythmic thumps outside the door can only indicate that the crowd has grown since Karen’s come in here, and everyone and their mothers are dancing their asses off and, thus, can spare no attention to the mortal enemies trapped together in this secluded space.  In one last-ditch attempt at freedom, Frank twists the knob furiously, before misplacing a kick at the door and wobbling away but somehow managing to keep the alcohol in his non-door-pounding hand level.

“If we’re stuck in here, I’m gonna consider it a personal failure on both our parts if we don’t finish that.”  She points at the glass container in his hand, the golden-brown liquid within swishing with his every step.  He raises his eyebrows at her, like he’s shocked she’ll need all the alcohol she can get to make it through this ordeal.

“...yeah.  Yeah, okay.”

So he offers her the scotch, and now, with fire lighting up her insides and the determination to make this hell of a night into a hell of a night, she swigs proudly, dabbing away every inkling of Matt or Elektra that might pop into her head.  Frank sits then, sliding his back down the locked door and indicates for her to do the same, pointing vaguely at some spot a few feet away from him.  A half-smile rises to his lips when she passes the bottle back.

“Well, Miss Page, I certainly wasn’t expecting having  _ you _ for a drinking buddy tonight.”

“Why, ‘cause I’m such a tightass?”  She smirks at him in defiance while he takes his sip, quirking an eyebrow in that universal expression that says,  _ You’ve got me. _  “Maybe if you didn’t push every button I’ve got, I wouldn’t be such a tightass in Elker’s class.”

“It ever occur to you I push your buttons because you’re a tightass, Karen?”  God damn him for looking so good tonight; if the whole clean-cut Marine thing didn’t turn her on enough already, the dark shirt that clings to his chest in all the right places (are there wrong places on him?   _ anywhere? _ ), the smell of fresh aftershave, the set of that strong jaw under those steely eyes...she wishes she could pass it off as being drunk, but  _ fuck _ , if his sex appeal didn’t have anything to do with him rubbing her the wrong way.

_ I mean, what would I do if he rubbed me the  _ right _ way? _

“So why were you all holed up in here, anyhow?  Your whole entourage is out there gettin’ blasted.”

“Jess is getting blasted.  Trish is most likely going to be getting it on with that Ward guy tonight, and Foggy and Marci are…”  Keeping my not-ex and his hot new girlfriend away from me?  Entertaining the former man of my dreams and the current woman of his?  “...I’m sure they’re otherwise occupied.”  Frank lets loose a sardonic laugh, shaking his head as he passes the alcohol back to her.

“Murdock, huh?  Jesus Christ, Karen…”  Anger flares up before she can help it, and she pushes the decanter at him with a little unnecessary roughness.

“I believe that’s none of your goddamn business, Frank.”  He scoffs, then drinks down his share, swirling the drink around again and wearing that unbearably self-absorbed half-smile that he likes to wear so much.

“Don’t get your shorts in a twist, I’m just of the mind that a girl like you shouldn’t be wastin’ your tears over a guy like him.”

“None of your goddamn business where my tears do or don’t go, Frank.”

“Christ, you are hung  _ up _ on him.  What’d he do?  Buy you flowers?  Make you a mixtape?”

“Shut the  _ fuck  _ up.”  She is not letting her resolve crumble in front of him.  She is not feeling the hot sting of tears behind her eyes, or the ridges of a lump in her throat.  She is not letting him see this part of her.

“Okay,” he relents, putting his hands up in surrender.  She snatches the bottle away from him, taking a long drink and averting her gaze.  “Hey, I’m sorry.  Okay?  I’ll leave it alone.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”  The words come out like venom, strong and steady like the drink in her hands.  “So you can keep your bullshit opinions about my love life to yourself, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice turning soft and  _ God damn _ him for doing that thing where he makes her want to knock him out and then makes her want to...well, to do other things to him.  “Hey, seeing as I don’t know shit about you, maybe you can enlighten me, yeah?”  She wonders if he talks this way to the people he’s trying to talk down, Marines with gunfire and mortar blasts in their eyes, shell-shocked to oblivion.

“What, you wanna play twenty questions like we’re in the fourth grade?”  He shrugs, glancing down into the now half-empty glass container.

“Better than pushing your buttons till your head explodes,” he chuckles, now apparently also determined to finish the bottle by the time that they get out of here, based on how long he drinks from it this turn.  “Okay, how about this.  Ask each other questions.  If you don’t want to answer, you drink.  First question: if you weren’t stuck in here with me, what would you be doing out there?”

“I’m gonna drink anyway, but if I were out there right now...probably trying to dance my troubles away with Foggy and Marci.”  She takes a swig, then passes it back.  “Okay.  What even  _ is _ your major?  I’ve only ever seen you in Oral Communication, but you’re obviously not a freshman.”

“Criminal Justice.  Military teaches you a bunch when it comes to dealing with assholes: how to shoot, how to hide, how to strategize.  It don’t teach you how to talk to people, though, so my advisor ‘n I thought it’d be a good idea.”

She nods, taking the bottle back.  Fair enough.

“Why are you so hard on yourself all the time?”

That one catches her in the gut.  It’s the kind of thing that’s second nature to her now, spending every living hour she can perfecting herself, doing everything she can to succeed and hold all her shit together, but not the kind of thing she’d expect him to notice.  The kind of thing that she maybe forgets to notice sometimes herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  She stands up, paces toward the bed and turns her face away from him, closing her eyes hard when she hears him stand up, too.

“C’mon, cut the shit, Karen.  You got to class this morning 45 minutes before it started.  Stayed to apologize to Elker today for every point you thought you missed.  When your friends’ve got problems, you make it your problem.”  He brushes a hand back through that thick groove of hair at the crown of his head.  “I--I don’t know, you just...you spread yourself thin, it seems like.  To shut people out, push ‘em away, to get stuck in your own head...I don’t know.  See you drivin’ yourself up this wall, and...shit, I don’t know.”

A pause falls between them.  She’s looking at him, certain her eyes must be glassy with booze and the drowsy remnants of hurt or anger or whatever it is that a cornered animal feels, and maybe a little something else, hot and tight in her chest.  She reaches for the alcohol, electing to answer with a longer swig than was probably necessary.

“Okay.  Here’s a probing question back at you, Mr. I-Know-Everything.  What else do you  _ notice  _ about me when you’re not busy tucking your head up your own ass all the time?”  It could be a better insult.  She  _ insists _ to herself she could do better than that.

But this time when she thrusts her hand forward to offer him the bottle, his fingers close over her wrist, and he’s close enough to touch, close enough to see the spaces between his eyelashes.  Whatever venom she tasted in her words fades away, but the wall next to them begins to thump so heavily it shakes the dresser propped against it, and there’s no mistaking the song, no matter the amount of shiplap between the stereo and them.

_ “Have you got color in your cheeks?  D’you ever get that fear that you can’t shift the tide that sticks around like summat’s in your teeth?” _

“I fucking  _ hate _ this song,” Frank sighs, shaking his head and, as if he only just realized he’s been gripping it tight, lets go of her wrist, waving away the half-decanter.

“Me too.”  Of course he hates this song.  Of course this is the one thing they agree on.

“You know what I notice about you when my head’s not up my own ass?” he’s saying now, and between blinks, he’s looking at her again, that glass in his eyes now, too, the hints of his tongue flicking out to measure the length of his lower lip.  She can’t help but watch it, can’t help the all-too-recognizable swooping feeling in her belly.

“I know you got your girls’ back all the time.  And they got yours.  I know you pull through whenever you can.  Call your little brother after class every day, just to make sure he’s doin’ alright.  I know you don’t do the same for your folks, probably because you’re trying to get that kid out of that house soon as you can afford to.  Know you’ve had to fight for yourself your whole life, ‘cause no one else will.”  He’s coming closer, with every beat of that stupid song pounding against the hardwood floors under those stupid boots of his.  

He’s flush against her now, those same fingers that had taken her wrist a moment ago landing in ghostly whispers on her naked tricep.  The other hand is at the side of her face, but she wills herself not to lean into it while it combs through the gossamer strands of her hair.

“I know you got a heart bigger than you’re willing to admit.  Know it’s been broken more times than you’re willing to admit, too.  And right now you’re terrified I’m edgin’ my way in, ‘cause I could be just like every other asshole.  Except I notice things.  And that terrifies you just a little bit more.”

She’s got a lot of things she wants to say to him.

_ You don’t know what you’re talking about. _

_ You’re full of shit, Frank. _

Instead, she pulls him down to her, nearly digging her nails into the back of his neck to bring those wide, never-resting lips down to hers, and then they collide.

It’s as though she’s melted at the mouth, somewhere between the alcohol and the lust losing her grip of whose tongue is whose, whose lips are whose, but he’s there and he’s warm and he’s almost holding her up, gentle and strong all at once.  The sting of the scotch on their breaths burns with the soft scents of her fruity perfume and his icy aftershave.  She’s vaguely aware of the song in the next room coming to an end, but his hard body on hers, his large hands both framing her face and sliding down to her waist drown out every last echo.

Every last echo except for the one of a key turning in a lock.

“Karen?  Oh, shit!”

Trish and Ward are a giggling mess, especially when they spot the way Karen pushes away against Frank’s chest, his arm still hanging loosely at her waist.

“Sorry, we’ll give you guys the room.”  Trish’s eyebrows are halfway up her forehead, and that goofy grin plastered over her face catches Karen somewhere between needing to get the hell out of this room and not giving a quarter of a shit.

“It’s--it’s cool,” Frank says, turning towards them but not taking that arm out from Karen’s waist.  He guides her through the doorway, letting Trish and Ward in past them.  “Hey, Walker.  How come you didn’t tell me this door locks automatic from the outside?”

“Oh, it doesn’t.”  She smirks, reaching for the knob on the outside to pop the tiny switch in the middle.  “But, uh, it does lock from the outside, so, Karen dear, don’t let anybody in here for a little while.”

The door swings shut between the two couples, leaving Karen and Frank dumbfounded on the side with the slowly-emptying room, only Jessica, Foggy, Marci, and Jess’s resident stoner Malcolm still enjoying the festivities from the kitchen.

“Frank, why  _ did  _ you come into the room in the first place?”  Trickles of suspicion leak into Karen’s voice, as she looks him up and down, still not bothering to disentangle her limbs from his.

“Walker told me to grab the extra booze and check on you in the bathroom.  Told me to close the door behind me ‘cause the music might make you blow chunk.”

Though she rolls her eyes now and pulls Frank in to kiss him again, again, and again, not worried or wondering about the ramifications this evening will have on either of their tomorrows, there’s a thought she still can’t banish from her head.

Patricia Walker has earned first-spot in the list of people looking to get their lights knocked out.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked this one! The idea popped up for me when I listened to those "playing muffled from the next room" videos on YouTube, so I really just had to do it. Thanks so much for reading, hope to hear from y'all soon :)


End file.
